Hatamoto
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A hatamoto (旗本) was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogun. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo era, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the gokenin were the lower vassals.
The line between hatamoto and gokenin, especially amongst hatamoto of lower rank, was not rigid, and the title of hatamoto had more to do with rank rather than income rating. In the context of an army, it could be compared to the position of an officer. Throughout the Edo period, hatamoto held the distinction that if they possessed high enough rank, they had the right to meet the shogun face to face (known as ome-mie ijo). All hatamoto can be divided into two categories, the kuramaitori, who took their incomes straight from Tokugawa granaries, and the jikatatori, who held land scattered throughout Japan. Unlike the daimyo, the hatamoto who were jikatatori did not have a duty of alternate attendance (sankin kotai). The dividing line between the upper hatamoto and the fudai daimyo-- the domain lords who were also vassals of the Tokugawa house-- was 10,000 koku.
The hatamoto who lived in Edo resided in their own private districts and oversaw their own police work and security.
The expression "eighty thousand hatamoto" was in popular use to denote their numbers, but a 1722 study put their numbers at about 5000. Adding the gokenin brought the number up to about 17,000.
References
- Bolitho, Harold. Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. (ISBN 0300016557)
- Ooms, Herman. Charismatic Bureaucrat: a Political Biography of Matsudaira Sadanobu, 1758-1829. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975. (ISBN 0226630315)
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